redwinelover's Journal, 19 Oct 10

Well... I'm not exactly WELL... but I'm a lot better! Thank God. I just hate being sick. Thank you to my buddies that have been praying for my health and the support and kindness and the PM's. :) That all makes me VERY happy! And you know what ELSE makes me happy? My LINE turned BLUE today! I'm at 126 /12 lbs! I never thought I'd see the day! I'm officially within 1 1/2 lbs of my goal weight. WHEN I reach it, I'll then take a look and see how things are. Not gonna sweat about it for now... but I'll BASK in that beautiful blue line. I WONDERED if I'd ever see that! That makes my official weight loss 48.5 pounds! If I add in the additional five pounds from my highest weight a few months before I started this, that's 53 1/2 lbs. Holy cow, that's a lotta weight. :D So I have not weighed this since RIGHT after my mom passed away in June '02. At which point I'd gotten many stupid comments - anorexic, "tweeker" look, too skinny, OLD (loved THAT one!), etc. Not that those comments had much to do with me putting on weight - probably more due to all the stress and the way the family fell apart within days of her passing. It was a horrible time, but we've all survived and finally... FINALLY are becoming family again - all the kids. Some of us have remained close or reconnected shortly after - others stayed estranged for WAY too long. ANYWAY... I'm BACK to where I like to be, weight-wise, and hoping to be happy here. If not, I'll just continue on to 122 and see how the view is! LOL...

Okay, I've clued in a couple of my buddies as to what is going on here. Now's my "public coming out" :D. And I've hesitated sharing this news for such a long time, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is I do NOT want to discourage ANYONE from losing weight. EVER. Because first and foremost - it IS about health. BUT... vanity sometimes comes into play. Who doesn't want to LOOK good, as well as FEEL good, right? Anyway, after losing this nearly 50 lbs, I'm left with a lot of excess, sagging, wrinkling skin. Parts of my body are no longer even recognizable.I have the unfortunate combination of age, hormone issues, poor skin, heredity, sun damage, and almost zero elasticity to my skin. So I'm doing it - tomorrow, as a matter of fact. I'm having some pretty intensive plastic surgery. He's going to put things back where they belong, if you catch my drift, and maybe puff 'em back up (okay...no MAYBE'S about it), and stretch and pull and do some nip/tucking. A LOT of thought went into this. I realize the risks (and you have to sign probably 50 pages of information and acknowledge every possible problem, complication, outcome, etc that could possibly arise). When seen together in its entirety, it's a scary sight indeed. BUT... so is my BELLY! And a couple of other things! Ha ha ha... So, fortunately, I have a MOST supportive and loving husband who actually listened to a remark I dropped on him almost casually one night, and the next day we began talking about it. The timing worked out great in a thousand ways - from some things taking place at his work that allowed us to be able to afford this in the first place, to the actually timing of the surgery itself. You see, I'm ALSO celebrating klannoye's BIRTHDAY (TOMORROW.... EVERYONE WISH HER A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND PASS ON MY LOVE TO HER, TOO!) with this "gift" that she's been so supportive of for weeks and weeks now. AND this should give me enough time to heal before Thanksgiving - at least to the point where I can do some things, but the cleaning will be passed on to the others (what a SHAME! :D), and I will be healed enough by the possible "vacation" to Maui with my husband's work the first or second week of Dec. That one isn't a definite, but it's a very likely possibility. AND this allows me to heal in time to decorate for my very favorite time of the year, CHRISTMAS!!! And it all happened to work out well, "my" surgeon (damn, a real hottie, too) had ONE date open this month, the rest were early and mid November, and when the office manager mentioned the date (20th) I KNEW it was meant to be. Because that is when klannoye's birthday is and it worked with the rest of the things planned here in the near future! ctlss... YOU'VE been wonderful also. I decided to confide in you, knowing what a great person you are, and having the gut feeling you would NOT be judgmental and WOW, was I dead on with THAT one! You're wonderful and a blessing and so happy we're friends! Sturgeon Queen - YOU are also WONDERFULLY supportive and I think it's awesome how positive you are for me regarding this decision. Thank you, my cyber daughter! MISS Youngbug - you have also proven to be wonderfully supportive and caring and you can sit at our table ANY time! Thank you, sweetie. And klannoye... dear, sweet, HILARIOUSLY FUNNY, loving, supportive, CHEERLEADING, amazing friend of mine... I can never thank you ENOUGH for all the support and cheering on and love and friendship - true friendship (who ELSE can call you a w---- and say it with such LOVE! :D), NOT to mention the daily CWK that generally has me laughing so hard I choke on my coffee! Wow... this sounds like an acceptance speech! :D I just wanna THANK my buddies, for the support I've already seen with this, and to apologize for my being surprised by it. I've underestimated many of you. I KNOW there are those who do NOT think surgery of this type is okay at all... oh well. For me? It's the only thing that is keeping me from wanting to go back to about 20 lbs ago, before everything really started looking terrible. NOW.... PLEASE KNOW... with MY particular set of circumstances, the end result was... let's just say less than pleasing. BUT... thank God - not many of us have ALL of these things going against them at the same time. So PLEASE... don't stop reaching for your goal, thinking you'll end up looking the same way. Chances are GREAT you will not. AND some skin will tighten back up, but trust me... this skin would have NEVER found it's way home! So tomorrow it is... surgery is at 7:30. It's going to be a LONG procedure - estimated at 8 1/2 hrs. That's a long time under anesthesia, so I would really appreciate ALL the prayers you friends of mine can offer up, okay? I'm going to have my husband or daughter text klannoye when I'm out of recovery, so it's HER job to let you all know. BUT... if she's out - drunk, eating greasy food (kidding! well, okay, not really) and FORGETS to post... get mad at HER! :D nah... just check the next day. Plus, she's a HUGE insomniac, and seems to like to write at 3:00am east coast time (?)!
So... there you have it. Please, friends, buddies, wish me luck. I probably won't be posting for a few days... I'll be heavily medicated the first two days (thank God), then the usual here at home, but don't know how well I'll be able to type! Sort of like drunk texting - usually if it's legible, you regret what you said! Take care everyone. Oh, and in case anybody is wondering? I'm NOT disappearing because I'm close to my goal. I need the accountability of this sight and appreciate the friendship and support of all of you more than you know! See you in a few days!

SIDE NOTE - at the urging of a couple of my buddies, I finally found a "before" picture to post.. It's huge - both the actual photo and ME in it! lol... anyway, I posted it on the Oct. 13th journal entry so you can get a better idea of before and after. One of these days someone is gonna teach me to RESIZE these things!

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665 kcal

Fat: 14.53g | Prot: 36.27g | Carbs: 98.59g.   Breakfast: organic flax pumpkin granola, greek style yogurt, Sugar Free French Vanilla Coffee Creamer, Almonds, Strawberries, Blueberries. Lunch: laughing cow, sourdough bread, grapes. more...